Due to extensive losses by conservative and moderate Democrats, another shift in power occurred in the House last night besides Republicans taking the majority. The Congressional Progressive Caucus has replaced the Blue Dogs and the New Democrats as the plurality ideological caucus among House Democrats. For the first time ever, the CPC is larger than Blue Dogs and New Dems combined.

Here are the specifics, assuming every House candidate who is currently ahead stays ahead. That would mean a Republican majority of 243-192, for a net Republican gain of 64:

Here is a finer level of detail that separates out the duplicates, and looks at the five types of ideological caucus members among House Democrats with full voting rights:

10. There was plenty of enthusiasm in the districts the blue dogs lost.

It was just for Republicans.

There are not legions of progressives hiding in MS-4, MO-4 or VA-9, but Gene Taylor, Ike Skelton, and Rick Boucher managed to hold those districts for decades. The price of that was they couldn't go very far to the left.

As stunningly inadequate as HCR, the stimulus, and financial reform seem to us here in the echo chamber, they were far enough to the left that those seats weren't tenable anymore.

And getting those seats back will require running candidates who are... wait for it... conservative enough to get elected in those districts.

5. It is easy to have a vast majority progressive caucus if your caucus is a powerless minority.

Edited on Sat Nov-06-10 11:24 AM by BzaDem

Then again, a powerless minority Democratic caucus can't even unlock the bathroom in the House, let alone pass legislation. So I'm not sure why anyone considers this state of affairs to be a good thing.

If you want a majority, you need significant numbers of blue dog seats. The next majority we get will have significant numbers of blue dog seats. Of course most of the seats we lost were blue dogs -- they are the ones that come from unsafe districts that we need to win to become a majority.

Progressives won because they came from safe districts. The few that were in unsafe districts (Grayson, Perriello, Feingold in the Senate) lost.

14. What you are missing is that it is impossible to have a majority AT ALL without significant numbers

of blue dogs.

The average congressional district is R+3. There are many more congressional districts that are conservative than are liberal, even if you deny this fact or don't like this fact.

To the extent "voters like clear choices," on average they make their choice clear by voting Republican.

Sure, in a wave election like '06 and '08, where Republicans are unenthusiastic and Democrats are enthusiastic, we might be able to buck the tide and get independent voters to vote for Democrats if the Democrats in question agree with the independent voters on policy. But that won't happen if we nominate a candidate that disagrees with the Independent voters on every single policy, as you propose.

There won't be a next time for them. They're taking the dirt nap. That said, I don't think we'll see a Dem House again in this decade.

Perhaps there will be a different iteration thereof (a Center/Moderate/Right coalition within the Democratic Party) but I doubt it will look like these groups. For one thing the lines of demarcation are changing too much for this iteration to be viable.

And if you want my opinion truly, I think the term center-right Democrat will ring as funny in 20 years as liberal Republican does now. I was born in an era where if you wanted to win in my home state as a Republican, you had to be a liberal Republican. Republicans still win in my home state but they're not liberal...things change. This change is the end of this iteration (or form, if you prefer form) of moderate Democratic politics.

These sea-changes happen...the conditions that made this iteration viable no longer exist. The very premise you're pushing is a dinosaur...it's time has passed and something else will evolve to replace it. It's happened before and will happen again...and we'll be viable throughout. The moderates of tomorrow will not look like the ones you supported.

42. You are correct that the type of Democrat needed to win in some districts might no longer be

"center right." Now, it might just be "right." So to the extent that the premise I am pushing is a "dinosaur," that may be true, but if it is true, it is because these districts are so far right that they won't even elect center-right Democrats anymore (not because they are about to elect liberals).

Can there be a sea change in 20 years? Sure there can be. But that would redefine what the center is, so what I am saying is generally true regardless of the era. It could be that a center-right Democrat in the future is much more progressive than a center-right Democrat is today. Or it could be the case that a center-right Democrat in the future is much more conservative than a center-right Democrat is today.

It all depends on where the people move (and therefore where the center moves).

Because it's the crux of the problem...if progressives cannot win in those districts, then the solution has to be to fix our message so we can be competitive in those district. The solution can't be to continue to be pulled farther right and/or to continue to send purplish-red Democrats to office.

You solution is not a solution, if that's the best we can do then we need to do better or don't bother contesting those districts.

44. Alan Grayson just found out that he can't continue to win in a conservative district.

So I don't need to tell him anything.

The people in these districts are offered a choice every 4 years for President. And every 4 years, they vote massively against Democrats. Including very liberal Democrats like McGovern/Mondale/Dukakis.

You're hog-tied to a dead goat of a political-identity. It's not viable in those districts clearly anymore than it is anywhere else.

You're in Bohemia. Pull out your modern atlas and find Bohemia for me. You can't because it stopped existing as a country during WW I. It, like the current iteration of the center-right coalition, is a relic of the past.

The question is do you want to be part of the next moderate coalition of the Democratic Party which is viable in those districts or do you want to be irrelevant?

45. I think the problem with your Bohemia-analogy is that it is false.

Just because this particular year was bad for moderate Democrats doesn't mean every year in the future will be. Just because an identity was perfectly valid in '06 and '08, but not in '10, doesn't mean it won't be in '12 or '14. If you were talking about an identity that hasn't been valid for 30 years, you might have a point, but conservative and moderate Democrats have been elected on and off for decades.

You're very tied to a specific axis by which you're defining the lines of demarcation. Things only move in one dimension, along that line. All positions fall along that line from right to left. (Note that these terms are meaningless. They merely act to denote shades of gray between two absolute POVs. Change the two end points and we still define positions along the line from right to left.) You're arguing for one position on that line, saying other positions along that line are not viable in some districts.

I'm not arguing for abandonment of that position, I'm arguing for an abandonment of that line of demarcation entirely. We've waged war with the GOP on social issues and in a large part of the country, we've lost and it's killing our agenda on other fronts. Let's wage war on another front as the key dividing point.

For an example:Someone suggested in another thread that we refuse to address the GOP on the Bush tax-cuts and push a payroll tax holiday instead for small business hiring. It's brilliant because it puts us on the side of small businesses and workers. The GOP will have to oppose it because it would be disastrous for large corporations that give them lots of money in a post-Citizens United landscape. Consistently make those sorts of plays (which would be popular in ever district in the US) and you redraw the front-lines of the political battlefield right through their base. Of course, it means abandoning our own Wall St. friends.

We know there are still New Dems in the Senate,why else would our legislation be so watered down?Why else would sound House legislation be stymiedwhen we had a "bullet-proof majority of 60" in the Senate.

Nelson will turn Republican in the next election,because that's about what he is, and I don't thinkKerry would like being identified as a DLC member.

16. And what does that prove? That if you draw a district so that the Democrat can't lose

They won't?

Blue Dogs were in the front line districts, many of which were Republican turf before 2006 and 2008. The majority of the progressive caucus are in comfy districts built to suite, and have never faced a legitimate Republican challenge.

But no matter how you put it, the losing Blue Dogs lost their own districts, districts previously won, be they front line, back line, squiggly line, you name it. They lost the districts they had won, their own damn turf. Won it, then lost it.

as it is not accurate, as the 4th represents part of the coast, but not all, and has much far inland area, I'm in the middle of it, 60 miles from the coast. It is one of the geographically largest districts. We have liberals, conservatives, radicals, anarchists, you name it. Peter wins the votes of liberal urban people as well as farmers, ranchers, retirees, students. Anyone running for office of any sort would do well to watch Peter in action at a rural town hall.

Someone who is a populist barnstormer. Someone who talks like those constituents. Someone who can connect and talk honestly about their faith. Someone who can connect their values clearly and concisely to liberal ideals. Let's be honest, we've sucked at choosing those people for a while.

The problem is in media, not message. We've ceded a lot of ground to the GOP on things that have f*ck-all to do with actual content of the agenda, liberal or moderate. It's time liberals running for office shut up about ideals until after they've stooped to eating crappy pie and kissing babies and connected to the constituents. Nobody trusts politicians, but they trust people they genuinely connect to.

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